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A SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, 



THE SPEAKERS AND MEiMBERS 



GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA. 



WASHINGTON, FEBSUARY 29, 
1836. 



LETTER, 

To the Speakers and Members of the General Assembly/ of Virginia:^ 

Washington, Febrxiary 29, 1836. 

Gentlemen: Certain resolutions of the General Assembly, instructing 
their Senators in the Congress of the United States to introduce and to vote 
for a resolution to expunge the journal of a previous Senate in the particular 
therein mentioned, and pointing out the precise manner in which the act shall 
be performed, have been made known to nie. After the most deliberate ex- 
amination which I am capable of bestowing upon them, and with a sincere 
desire to conform my conduct to the wishes of the General Assembly, I find 
it impossible to reconcile the performance of the prescribed task with the 
obligations of the solemn oath which I have taken to support the constitution 
of the United States. With what promptitude 1 should comply with the in- 
structions of the Legislature, if compliance was permitted, may readily be 
inferred from my past course of conduct; and I beg your indulgence, gentle- 
men, whilst I advert to the most prominent incidents of my life in connexion 
with the great question of instructions. I was very young when I first took 
my seat in the House of Delegates, to which I had been elected within a fev/ 
days after I had attained the age of twenty-one. The then Senators from 
Virginia (Messrs. Giles and Brent) stood obnoxious to the charge of having 
disregarded the instructions of the Legislature, adopted on the motion of a 
gentleman, then a distinguished member, (Governor Barbour,) to vote against 
rechartering the Bank of the United States. The first, while he voted against 
the Bank, denied the right of the Legislature to instruct him; the last disre- 
garded the instructions altogether, and voted for the Bank. Impelled by no 
other motive than a desire to uphold the Legislature in its right to instruct its 
deputed organs, I introduced a resolution disapproving the course which had 
been pursued by the Senators. My motive in doing so was single and un- 
mixed — I was too young to seek profit by their overthrow. The resolution 
thus introduced by me passed into other hands, and was substituted by other 
resolves, which were finally adopted by the two Houses of Assembly by large 
and overwhelming majorities. At the age of twenty-five, I took my seat in 
the House of Representatives of the United States. The repeal of the com- 
pensation law soon came under discussion. I came in to supply a vacancy, 
and brought with me the wishes of my constituents in regard to that measure; 
I made them known, and claimed the repeal of the law as due to the well- 
ascertained wishes of the people. This brought into discussion the obliga- 
tion of instruction; and I contended for the right, under the same restric- 
tions and limitations as had been laid down in the resolution before al- 
luded to. I now reaffirm the opinion at all times heretofore expressed by 
me, that instructions are mandatory, provided they do not require a violation 
of the constitution, or the commission of an act of moral turpiiude. When 
acting under an oath, the public agent, whether a Senator or juror, is bound 
|)y obligations of a higher and more controlling character than can proceed 
from any earthly source. The constitution of the United States is the ori- 



ginal and primary letter of instnictions, supreme over all, and binding i.![>on 
all — for the agent who is sworn to support it, to violate it knowingly and 
intentionally, would be an act of the grossest immorality and most unmitigat- 
ed debasement. Such is the condition in which, in my view of the subject, 
obedience to your instructions would place me. It is known to you, gentle- 
men, that, on entering the Senate, the only oath which I took was an oath to 
support the constitution of the United States; to support it in all and each 
of its provisions; to yield it neither to force, persuasion, nor expediency; no 
matter what the object, should its attainment confer upon me the greatest 
personal advantage, still to remain unseduced. Not to touch that forbidden 
fruit — I entered into a covenant with my Creator, to break which would not 
fail to place in my bosom a Promethean vulture to tear and devour me. The 
obligation, then, to obey an instruction which calls upon me to break that 
covenant, cannot possibly exist. I should be unworthy the confidence of all 
honorable men if I could be induced, under any circumstances, to commit an 
act of deliberate perjury. Instead of a seat in the Senate, I should most 
richly deserve to be put in the pillory, and to lose both my cars as an indeli- 
ble mark of iny baseness; and such would be the sentence which the law of 
Virginia would pronounce against mo. You have admitted the truth of this 
proposition in the alternatives presented in your second resolution. Between 
those alternatives I cannot hesitate to choose. It is not for every diflerence 
of opinion which may arise between the representative and constituent, that 
the constituent would necessarily require the resignation of the representative. 
In the course of a somewhat long political life, it must often have occurred 
that my opinions have been variant from the opinions of those I represented; 
but, in presenting to me the alternative of resignation in this instance, you 
give me distinctly to be informed that the accomplishment of your object is 
regarded as of such primary importance, that my resignation is desired if 
compliance cannot bo yielded. I am bound to consider you as in this fairly 
representing the sentiments of our common constituents, the people of 
Virginia, to whom alone you are amenable if you have mistaken their 
wishes. My position in regard to this whole subject is of a character to 
preclude me from going into abstractions. I do not hesitate, on the con- 
trary, to declare, that if you had, as the accredited organs of the people, 
addressed mo a request to vacate my seat in the Senate, your request 
would have had with me the force of law — not a day or an hour would 
I desire to remain in the Senate beyond that day and that hour where- 
in I came to be informed that it was the settled wish of the people of Vir- 
ginia that I should retire from their service. That people have honored me 
with the highest offices witliin their gift. If the talents which I have brought 
into their service be humble, I have at least brought fidelity to their interests. 
No where else have I looked for reward, but to their approbation. I have 
served under four administrations, and might, doul^ilessly, by a course of sub- 
serviency and sycophancy, have obtained, what is called by some, prefer- 
ment; but what could have compensated for the baseness of my prostitu- 
tion, and the betrayal of the confidence reposed in me by a generous people? 
The Executive files furnish no record of my name as an applicant for any of 
the crumbs which have fallen from the Executive table. I repeat that I have 
looked exclusively to the people of Virginia — and when they have extended 
to me their confidence for twenty-odd years — when I am indebted to them 
for whatsoever of credit and standing 1 possess in the world — I cannot, and 
will not, permit myself to remain in the Senate for a moment beyond the_ 
time that their accredited organs shall instruct me that mv services are no 



longer acceptable. If gratitude for the past did not, my own conscious weak- 
ness would control my course. Wiiat would it profit xhn country, or myself, 
for me to remain in the Senate against their wishes? By retaining my place, 
in opposition to their fixed, declared, and settled will, I should aid no cause — 
advance no great purpose — be powerless for good, and provoke only to harm. 
Reposing on my own feeble strength, I should vainly (latter myself that I 
could, with my single arm, sustain the constitution, and keep back what I 
might consider the tide of error — when, in very trutli, I should but excite the 
popular prejudices more strongly, and ijiiniinently endanger the conslitutiori 
by my elTorts to sustain it. ^^j^-" 

In resigning then, gentlemen, into your hands, my p'lace in the Senate of 
the United States, to which I was called by your predecessors, I trust I shall 
he indulged in a brief exposition of the reasons which have led me to the 
conclusion, that, to obey your instructions, would be to violate the constitu- 
tion of the United States. I shall do so boldly and fearlessly; but with all 
becoming respect, and with all the brevity in my power, * The Senate is or- 
dered by the constitution to keep a journal of its proceedings, and to publish 
it froin time to time. This injunction is thus solemnly imposed upon the ag- 
gregate body, and on each individual Senator: whatever sliall be done, shall 
be faithfully recorded by the Secretary, and shall be faithfully kept — not for 
an hour, and then to be defaced; not for a day, and then to be erased; not for 
a year, and then to be expunged; but forever, as a perpetual witness, a faithful 
history by which the conduct, the motives, the actions of men shall be judged, 
not by those of the present day only, but through all time. It was a wise cus- 
tom among the Cl)inese, which required the' biography of each Emperor to be 
written before the close of his life, and placed before him, so as to give him 
foreknowledge of what the world would think of him after his death. It was 
designed to restrain his evil passions, to curb the exercise of despotic sway. 
It addressed itself to his ambition, and excited within him a longing for au 
immorlaliiy in the gratitude and admiration of succeeding ages. But this pro- 
vision in our constitution is still wiser. Each Senator writes daily his own 
biography. He is required to record his own acts, and takes an oath to keep 
that record, and to publish it fro7n time to time. The applause or censure of 
his fellow-men is not postponed until he has descended to the tomb. It is 
dail}' uttered by the living generation. How powerful are the inducements 
thus addressed to each member to be faithful to tlie trust confided to him! 
How much to be admired tiie wisdom of our ancestors, in framing the consti- 
tution! If this was its only feature, their title to immortality would seem to 
be established. 

This simple provision is one of the great secuj'ities of Ameiican liberty. It 
takes nothing upon trust. If the Senate kept no journal, it would be a secret 
conclave, where deeds the most revolting might be performed in secrecy and 
darkness. The train might there be laid, the mine prepared, and the first 
knowledge of the treason might be the explosion and consequent overthrow 
of free government. Liberty could not co-exist with such a state of thino-s. 
There is no liberty where there is no responsibility, and there can be no re- 
sponsibility where nothing is known. To have a Secretary seated at the 
table of the Senate, to write down its proceedings, and to claim for itself the 
right to cancel, obliterate, or ex[)unge what he had written, is equivalent to 
having no journal at all — a mockery and a fraud. The journal of the morn- 
ing may be cancelled in the evening. That of to-day ma}^ be expunged to- 
morrow. Cancel it in any way — vi'hether by black or red marks — whether 
with circles or by straight lines — it ceases to be a journal; and that which was, 



is not. The journal is to he published. But there is no journal; there was 
one yesterday, but ere it can reach the press, it is cancelled, marked out, or 
expunged. These are the necessary results of obedience to your instructions. 
If that journal contain a transaction discreditable to the Senate, I would pre- 
serve it as a perpetual monument of its disgrace — if, to a party leader, I will 
give him and his friends, who may temporarily have the ascendency, no war- 
rant to erase or blur the page on which such act of misconduct is recorded. I 
should be afraid, after performing such a deed, if Virginia is as she once was, 
(and I do not doubt it,) to return within her limits. The execrations of her 
people would be thundered in my ears; the soil which had been trod by her 
heroes and statesmen would furnish me no resting-place. I should feel my- 
self guilty, most guilty; and however I might succeed in concealing myself 
from the sight of men, I could not, in my view of the subject, save myself 
from the upbraidings of my own perjured conscience. How could I return 
to mix among her people, to share their hospitality and kindness, with the 
declaration on my lips, " I have violated my oath for office, and, sooner than 
surrender my place in the Senate, have struck down the constitution'?" 

If the Senate has a right to touch the Journal under instructions, it has 
the right to do so without; if to cancel a part, a right to expunge the whole; 
if to use ink from a pen, a right to pour it from a bottle; to destroy the Journal 
in any other way, to burn it; to make a bonfire of all that is bright and glorious 
in our history. I know it has been said, the process directed to be adopted 
by your resolutions is not designed to expunge. I cannot believe this, and 
reject it as equally injurious to yourselves and unjust to tliose you repre- 
sent. You direct the words " expunged by order of the Senate" to be writ- 
ten across the resolution on which you have made war. I will not believe 
that you merely design to ensnare my conscience — much less will I indulge, 
for a moment, the idea that you direct a falsehood to be recorded by me. 
Those do not understand you who make such ascriptions to you, and I am 
not misled by them. The General Assembly of a proud and lofty State is 
incapable of a mere quibble, and such a one as would disgrace a King's jester. 
No, gentlemen, the act which you direct to be performed is designed to be, 
and is, equivalent to an actual obliteration in all its practical results. The man- 
ner of accomplishing this act of cancellation is wholly immaterial. In pub- 
lishing this J ourna], from time to time, hereafter, the resolution thus cancelled 
cannot be published as a part of it. It is declared to be expunged on its face. 
But if, in this, I could possibly be mistaken — if, after all, it is merely child's 
play, the making a few flourishes, and putting the Secretary of the Senate to 
the trouble to write a few unmeaning words, the question would not be 
changed. Such as is the Journal, so shall it remain — unaltered in a letter, un- 
changed in a comma — the same as it now is " to the last syllable of recorded 
time;" such is the fiat of the constitution. There is not a clerk or deputy 
clerk in the commonwealth of Virginia who would execute such an order in re- 
gard to his records. The people would be alive to the question, and, in vindi- 
cation of their rights, would expuvgc the court, sooner than permit the record 
containing the titles to their estates to be cancelled in any manner whatever. 
They surely cannot take less interest in the preservation of the constitution, the 
great charter of all their rights. 

The eft'ort has been made to hunt up precedents to justify this act. The 
pages of English parliamentary history have been ransacked; and an array 
has been made of examples drawn from the times of the Jameses and 
Georges of England. With equal force might examples be quoted to justify 
an American President in executing capitally a citizen of any one of the 



States without the form of a trial. He might equally be justified in the use 
of the bow-string, because such is the power of the Grand Seignor. The 
power of the English Parliament is unlimited; so is that of many of the 
States of this Union in regard to this particular subject. No precedent 
can have force to overthrow an express enactment of the constitution. Un- 
der its provision the Senate is directed to keep a journal of its proceedings, 
to preserve it, and to publish it from time to time. If I were permitted to 
look elsewhere than to that constitution, I would go to Virginia for bright 
and glorious examples to conduct me in safety. The first in point of prom- 
inence, although not in point of time, was the course attempted to be 
adopted by the King's party in the House of Burgesses in 1765, as to the 
celebrated resolutions of Patrick Henry of that period. Those resolutions 
were declaratory of the rights of British America. After their adoption, 
many of those who voted for them left the city of Williamsburg, thereby 
giving to the opposite party the accidental ascendancy, and they immediately 
formed the resolution to expunge them from the journal. But, by a stroke of 
policy as bold as it was successful, Mr. Henry saved those resolutions from 
being expunged, which form at this day one of the brightest pages in Vir- 
ginia history, and, recorded on any man's tomb, would etetnize his fame. 
And yet to expunge them from the journal was regarded as much an act of 
duty by those who proposed it, as you, gentlemen, can esteem it to be in the 
case under consideration. They failed; and ray prayer as a citizen of a free 
country is, that you too may be unsuccessful. Your posterity may have good 
cause to rejoice in your failure. 

Another example, almost as illustrious, is to be found in the conduct 
of Robert Beverly during the administration of Lord Culpepper. The 
history of the incidents of that transaction is not only instructive, but 
highly interesting. Lord Culpepper, armed with all the authority of the 
, King of England, his master, ordered that a resolution adopted by the 
House of Burgesses, during the administration of Herbert Jeffries, should be 
expunged from their records, " as highly derogatory to His Majesty's pre- 
rogative." Robert Beverly was clerk to the House of Burgesses. Every 
effort was made to induce him to produce the journal in order to have it ex- 
punged; he was subjected to all manner of persecution, but he gloried in his 
sufferings, and his noble spirit rose in proportion to his persecutions. He 
peremptorily refused to comply, alleging " that his masters, the House of Bur- 
gesses, had alone a right to make such a demand, and that their authority 
alone he durst or would obey." And I, too, reply to those orders which are 
now given me, that I will not expunge the records of the Senate until the 
constitution, which while it is permitted to remain as it is, master over all, 
shall be changed, altered, or abolished. You will have full opportunity, gen- 
tlemen, to appoint another in my place. For my part, I will not consent to 
be made an instrument to accomplish such an object, nor shall I envy any 
successor whom you may send on such a mission. 

Had your resolutions directed me to rescind or repeal the resolution of the 
Senate, I would have obeyed your orders — although with great reluctance, 
I would, nevertheless, have felt myself constrained to do so by my recogni- 
tion of your right to instruct me. That proceeding would have reversed 
and annulled the act complained of. If your object was to vindicate the 
President in the authority which he assumed, and still exercises, over the 
public money, and you esteemed it necessary, in order to do so, to have 
your opinions expressed through me in the Senate chamber, they should have 
been faithfully represented. His vindication, after all, cannot consist in the 
form in which it may be urged. It is to be found alone io the legislative 



8 

expression of opinion; and even il" your declarations in his behalf were con- 
fined to your own journals, the historian would not fail to avail himself of 
them as efficiently as if they stood emblazoned on the heavens. From my 
knowledge of you, 1 am sure that you would not be willing to pull down the 
constitution unnecessarily and without object. 

In 3'Our effort to vindicate the President, you have cast on me, in common 
with others, the very reproach which you are pleased to regard as so offensive 
in reference to him. You have publicly, and before the world, declared a re- 
solution for which I voted to be " subversive of the rights of the House of Re- 
presentatives, and the fundamental principles of free government." If you 
designed to charge me with impurity of motive in the vote thus given, your 
accusation would imply the highest censure. But this I do not ascribe to you. 
You intend to say no more than that your judgment and opinion differs from 
that expressed by me upon the subject, out of which grew the resolution of the 
Senate; and that the .Senate committed an error which, in its effect, is cal- 
culated to subvert " the rights of the House of Representatives, and the fun- 
damental principles of free government." The censure which your reso- 
lution conveys, implies a want of correct judgment on my part in voting for 
that resolution, and nothing more. If this be your true meaning, (and I will not 
permit myself to think otherwise,) I am yet to learn how I incur the hazard 
of " subverting the rights of the House of Representatives, and the funda- 
mental principles of free government," by having declared, in substance, 
v.'hat, as a member of the Senate, I did by my vote declare — that the Presi- 
dent had mistaken his course, and that his conduct was " in derogation of the 
constitution and laws." Have I done more in this than you have done 
in your declaration'? and, if not, I submit it in all candor to your dispassionate 
judgment to say, whether, if I v.'cre liable to trial on impeachment before you, 
you would consider yourselves as having already pronounced upon my guilt 
in advance. I should certainly not dream of excepting to you as my judges, 
because, resting on my integrity of motive, I should feel confident of acquit- 
tal. There can be no guilt without a criminal design; and I am sure you 
would be among the last to ascribe to the President any criminality of design. 
Am I to understand you as declaring, because the House of Representa- 
tives may originate an impeachment against the President or other officer 
of the Government, that the Senate has no right to express an opinion 
as to any act of the President or other officer — no matter what may be 
the act, even if it annihilates the powers of the Senate? Has it no rights, in- 
herent in all other bodies, of self-protection and defence? A Brennus may 
invade the body and pluck it by the beard, and yet, according to this, it has no 
authority to resist. Go to that venerable patriarch of Montpelier, (JVIr. Madi- 
son,) and ask him whether, in framing the constitution, he designed that the 
Senate should be a mere motionless stock, or a vigilant sentinel to give notice 
of the approach of danger to that constitution which it is sworn to support. 
Whether the representatives of sovereign States are such mere automata, as 
to move only when they are bidden, and to sit in their places like statues, to 
record such edicts as may come to them? If the President recommends a 
measure which the Senate believes impolitic, shall it not say so? If he adopts 
a course which he may believe to be correct, but which the Senate tb'nks un- 
constitutional, may it not say so? And does its so declaring tend to subvert 
or support the fundamental principles of free government? You surely can 
be at no loss to decide. The Senate, in the instance of the laio Postmaster 
General, (Mr. Barry,) who had contracted loans, in his official character, for 
the use of his Department, without authority, declared, by a unanimous vote, 
that his proceedings in this respect were in violation of the constitution; and 



9 

yet no complaint has been uttered against that resolution of the Senate. How 
comes it about that anathemas have not been thundered in the ears of the 
Senate because of that vote^ Why is that not ordered to be expunged? 
Why is not that also declared " subversive of the rights of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, and of the fundamental principles of free government?" Is not 
the error as vital when it affects William T. Barry, as when it affects Andrew- 
Jackson? If so, every motive of generosity prompted an interference in 
behalf of the first. He was powerless, and is now in his grave. I had a per- 
sonal regard for Mr. Barry. Ho was talented, and his fault lay in his being 
too confiding; honest himself, he did not suspect others, and they deceived 
him. This was the rock on which he split. In voting for that resolution, I 
did not design to impute to him moral guilt. 1 did not believe it. 1 designed 
nothing more than to vindicate the constitution. I thought that, in doing so, I 
gave support to the " fundamental principles of free government," and never 
once dreamed that I had done an act in the remotest degree "subversive of 
the rights of the House of Representatives." 

But, say that in all this 1 was wrong. In voting for the resolution of the 
Senate, against which you are now so indignant, I did no more than carry 
out the expressly declared views of the Legislature, as expressed in then 
resolutions of that day, and which were passed by overwhelming majorities 
of more than two to one in both Houses. The terms employed by the Le- 
gislature were strong and decided. The conduct of the President was repre- 
sented as dangerous and alarming. I was told that it could not be too strongly 
condemned; that he had manifested a disposition greatly to extend his official 
jnflweiice; and because, with these declarations before me, I voted for a reso- 
lution which declares " that the President, in the late executive proceedings, 
has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution 
and laws, but in derogation of botii," I am now ostracised by your fiat, which 
requires obedience or resignation. Compare the resolutions of the General 
Asscmblv of that day with the above resolution, and its mildness will be 
•entirely obvious. I submit, with all due deference, to yourselves, what is to be 
the condition of a Senator in futiue, if", for yielding obedience to the wishes of 
one Legislature, he is to be called upon to resign by another. If he disobeys the 
first, he is condemned; if he obeys the last, he violates his oath and becomes 
an object of scorn and contempt. I respectfully ask if this be the mode by 
which the great right of instructions is to be sustained? May it not degene- 
rate into an engine of faction — an instrument to be employed by the outs to 
get in? Instead of being directed to noble purposes, to the advancement of 
tlie cause oi' civil liberty, may it not be converted into a political guillotine 
devoted to the worst of purposes? Nor are these anticipations at all weak- 
ened by the fact, as it exists in the case now under consideration, that several 
of those who constitute the present majorities in the General Assembly, and 
who now call upon me to expunge the journal or to resign my seat, actually 
voted for the very resolutions of a previnus srssion to which I hai'c referred.^ 

I have tiius, gentlemen, with frankness, but without designing oft'ence, 
-expressed to you my opinions. With the question whether the resolution 
of the Senate which you direct to be expunged be true or false, I have 
nothing in this [)lacc to do. If false, to njscind or repeal it was to anniliilale 
its force as effectually as to cancel it. You have preferred to adopt a differ- 
ent course. I dare not touch the journal of the Senate. The constitution 
forbids it. In the midst of all the agitations of party, I have heretofore stood 
by thai sacred instrument. It is the only post of honor and of safety. Par- 
ties are continually changing. The men of to-day give place to the men of 



10 

to-morrow; and the idols which one set worship, tlie next destroy. Theon!y 
object of my political worship shall be the constitution of my country, f 
will not be the instrument to overthrow it. A seat in the Senate is sufficiently 
elevated to fill the measure of any man's ambition, and, as an evidence of 
the sincerity of my convictions that your resolutions cannot be executed 
without violating my oath, I resign into your hands three unexpired years of 
my terra. I shall carry with me into retirement the principles which I 
brought with me into public life; and by the surrender of the high station to 
which I was called by the voice of the people of Virginia, I shall set an ex- 
ample to my children which shall teach them to regard as nothing, place and 
office, when either to be attained or held at the sacrifice of honor, 
I am, gentlemen. 

Your fellow-citizen, 

JOHN TYLER. 



11 



NOTES. 

The foUow'mg are the resolutions of the present General Assembly, for 
which the Senators from Virginia were required either to vote or resign their 
seats: 

Preamble and resolutions upon the subject of expunging from the journals 
of the Senate of the United States a resolution of that bodi/, and rela- 
tive to the right of instruction. 

Whereas the Senate of the United States did, on the twenty-eighth day of 
March, eighteen hundred and thirty-four, adopt the following resolution: 
" Resolved, That the President, in the late executive proceedings in relation 
to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not 
conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both;" which 
resolution now stands upon the journal of the Senate: 

And whereas the General Assembly of Virginia regard this act of the Senate 
as an assumption of power not warranted by the constitution, and calculated 
to subvert the rights of the House of Representatives, and the fundamental 
principles of our free institutions: 

And whereas this Assembly deem it their solemn duty again to reassert, in 
behalf of themselves and the people of Virginia, the right of the constituent 
to instruct, and the duty of the representative to obey or resign: Therefore, 

Resolved by the General Assembly of Virginia., That the Senators from 
this State, in the Congress of the United States, be, and they are hereby, in- 
structed to introduce, and vote for, a resolution, directing the aforesaid reso- 
lution of the Senate, of the twenty- eighth day of March, eighteen hundred and 
thirty-four, declaring — "that the President, in the late executive proceedings 
in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and 
power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both," 
to be expunged from the journal of the Senate of the United States, by caus- 
ing black, lines to be drawn around the said resolution, as it stands on the 
original manuscript journal, and these words plainly written across the face 
of the said resolution and entry: Expunged by order of the Senate of the 
United States. 

Resolved^ also. That this Assembly regard the right of instruction "as rest- 
ing on the broad basis of the nature of representation," and one of the vital 
principles of our free institutions; and that it is the duty of the representative 
to obey the instructions of his constituents, or resign the trust with which they 
have clothed him, in order that it may be transferred into the hands of those 
who will carry into execution the wishes and instructions of the constituent 
body. 

Resolved, That the Governor of the Commonwealth be requested to trans- 
mit the foregoing resolutions to each of the Senators from Virginia, in the 
Congress of the United States, with a request that they lay the same before 
the Senate. 

Agreed to by the General Assembly, February 20, 1836. 

GEORGE W. MUNFORD, C. H. D. 



The following are the resolutions of the General Assembly which were 
adopted by majorities of more than two to one in the House of Delegates 
and Senate, in the year 1834; in pursuance of which the Senators from 
Virginia voted for the resolution of the Senate now ordered to be expunged: 



12 

1. Resolved by the General Jlssembly, That the recent act of the President 
of the United States, exerting a control over the public deposites, by causing 
them to be withheld and withdrawn, on his own responsibility, from the United 
States Bank, in wiiich they had been ordered to be placed by the act of Con- 
gress chartering the said bank, is, in the judgment of the General Assembly, 
a dangerous and alarming assumption of power by that officer which cannot 
be too strongly condemned. 

2. Resolved, That while the General Assembly will ever be ready to sus- 
tain the President in the exercise of all such powers as the constitution has con- 
fided to him, they, nevertheless, cannot but regard with apprehension and dis- 
trust the disposition to extend his official authority beyond its just and proper 
limits, which he has so clearly manifested in his recent interference with the 
Treasury De[iartment of the Federal Goverim»ent, in the exercise of a sound 
discretion which Congress iiad confided to the head of that department alone. 

3. Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Repre- 
sentatives requested, to use their best exertions to procure the adoption, by 
Congress, of proper measures for restoring the public moneys to the Bank ot 
the United States, or, at least, for causing them to be deposited therein for the 
future, according to the direction and stipulation of the act of Congress char- 
tering the said bank, if, at the time of their action on the subject, the said bank 
be, in their opinion, a safe depository of the public treasure. 

4. Resolved, That the General Assembly cannot recognise as constitutional 
the power which has beeri claimed by Congress to establish a United States 
Bank, because, in the opinion of tlve General Assembly, as they have here- 
tofore solemnly declared, that power is not given to Congress by the constitu 
tion of the United States. 

5. Resolved, That the General Assembly do not intend by the declaration 
of their opinion in regard to the unconstitutionality of the Bank of the United 
States, to qualify, or in any manner to impair, the force of their disapproba- 
tion of the withholding and withdrawing of the public deposites. 

6. Resolved, That the Governor of the Commonwealth be requested to 
transmit a copy of these resolutions to each of our Senators and Representa- 
tives in the Congress of the United States. 



'The following is a list of the names of the members of the present General 
A&sembly who voted, except the first two named, for the first, and all for the 
second resolution, and who have now voted for the present expunging orders, 
to wit: y 

Linn Banks, Speaker of the House of Delegates. 

Thomas Sloan, of the same House. 

vStaftord H. Parker, Speaker of the Senate. 

Archibald R, Harwood, Samuel L. Hays, .John \V. Nash, William Shands, 
Francis Billingly, William Basye. 

This is the first time that a Senator has been forced to resign for obeying 
instructions, and that by the very men who gave them. 



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